WASHINGTON — Roger Clemens failed to convince Congress he was telling the truth.

So the leaders of a House committee want the Justice Department to investigate if the star pitcher lied under oath about using performance-enhancing drugs.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Henry Waxman and ranking Republican Tom Davis said Clemens’ testimony that he “never used anabolic steroids or human growth hormone warrants further investigation.”

The seven-time Cy Young Award winner gave a sworn deposition behind closed doors Feb. 5, then spoke alongside his accuser, former personal trainer Brian McNamee, at a public hearing Feb. 13.

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“We are not in a position to reach a definitive judgment as to whether Mr. Clemens lied to the committee,” Waxman and Davis wrote. “Our only conclusion is that significant questions have been raised about Mr. Clemens’s truthfulness.”

The letter noted Clemens’ testimony was “directly contradicted” by the sworn statements of McNamee, who said he injected Clemens with steroids and HGH at least 16 times from 1998 to 2001. Waxman and Davis also pointed to the deposition and affidavit of Clemens’ good friend and former teammate, Andy Pettitte, who told the committee Clemens “admitted to him in 1999 or 2000 that he had taken human growth hormone.”

“The contradictions and conflicts in what Clemens had to say, as compared to what others had to say, raised the issues about him,” Waxman said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “I don’t think there was an issue about Brian McNamee, but there certainly were issues about Roger Clemens.”

Waxman’s committee turned its attention to the matter because Clemens’ repeated and vigorous denials of McNamee’s allegations questioned the legitimacy of the Mitchell Report, prepared by former Senate majority leader George Mitchell and released in December.

After Clemens and McNamee stuck to their he-said, he-said stories under oath, it was expected that one or the other — or perhaps both — would be referred to the Justice Department for a criminal inquiry. Instead, only Clemens faces a possible perjury investigation, after the committee decided not to refer McNamee.

“Not everybody can be right, and the preponderance of the evidence in this case points to the fact that Clemens’ comments are the most incongruous,” Davis told the AP. “We are asking Justice to see what was the truth and what wasn’t the truth.”

The Justice Department may decide to pursue or ignore Congress’ request. Spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the department “is reviewing the letter and has no further comment at this time.” If an inquiry is opened, it likely would be by federal investigators in Washington.

Clemens’ prominent place in the Mitchell Report already tainted the legacy of a player who ranks eighth in major league history with 354 wins and is considered the greatest pitcher of his generation. That generation’s greatest hitter, home run king Barry Bonds, was indicted in November on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from his 2003 testimony to a grand jury in which he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs.

IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky, a key member of the team prosecuting Bonds, sat in the second row during the Clemens-McNamee hearing.

“Now we are done with the circus of public opinion, and we are moving to the courtroom,” Clemens’ lead lawyer, Rusty Hardin, told the AP in a telephone interview. “Thankfully, we are now about to enter an arena where there are rules and people can be held properly accountable for outrageous statements.”

Clemens didn’t answer questions Wednesday when approached by reporters at the Houston Astros’ spring training camp in Kissimmee, Fla. Pettitte, with the New York Yankees in Florida, declined comment through a team spokesman.

“It’s what we expected, but Brian is not joyful about this. No one is celebrating,” said McNamee’s lead lawyer, Earl Ward. “We think it’s a sad and unfortunate situation that one of baseball’s greatest pitchers now has the potential of being a defendant in a criminal case.”

Waxman sent committee Democrats an 18-page memo prepared by his staff outlining reasons for the criminal referral. The memo summarizes “seven sets of assertions made by Mr. Clemens in his testimony that appear to be contradicted by other evidence before the committee or implausible.”

Those areas involve Clemens’ testimony that he has “never taken steroids or HGH;” that McNamee injected him with the painkiller lidocaine; that team trainers gave him pain injections; that he received many vitamin B-12 injections; that he never discussed HGH with McNamee; that he was not at then-teammate Jose Canseco’s home from June 8-10, 1998; and that he was “never told” about Mitchell’s request to speak to him.